San Antonio Rose: The Life and Music of Bob Wills

by Charles Townsend

Book Overview

"Until Hank Williams came along, it was just Bob Willis," says Willie Nelson. "He was it." And indeed he was, especially for the thousands in the Southwest who knew and loved the King of Western Swing. The colorful band leader-composer-fiddler from Turkey, Texas, lassoed the emotions of country-and-western fans nationwide. In the early 1940s, his records outsold those of any other recording artist. He was voted not only into the Country...

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0252004701
• ISBN13: 9780252004704
• Release Date: January 1976
• Publisher: University of Illinois Press
• Length: 498 Pages
• Weight: 0.22 lbs.
• Dimensions: 7.0" x 10.0"

Customer Reviews

In Texas, Bob Wills is Still The King

OK. I'm a little biased. My grandfather J.W. Shafer, otherwise known as "Bub Shafer" (don't ask me why...nobody knows why), was a second cousin to Bob Wills. In this book, there's a photo of Bob standing in a cotton field near Turkey, Texas and he's got his arm around a young boy that looks about 13-years-old at the oldest. The young boy was my grandfather, and the caption beneath the photo states that Bob is posing with a relative in the cotton fields near Turkey, TX. I didn't read this book until a few years ago, and I read it cover-to-cover. It details EVERYTHING, including a consistent barrage of extensive notes and details about the writing and progression of almost every song from concept-to-recording, and all the events surrounding anything that Bob Wills and his Texas Playboys must have done. In fact, you almost feel as though you are reading a virtual daily journal as if the author walked side-by-side and recorded the details as time progressed over many decades of Bob Wills' life. It's all documented perfectly, as most of the documentation came from bandmembers or friends or relatives...and 99% of each person's accounts were cross-checked against other sources for authenticity. Mr. Townsend definitely wanted to get the real Bob Wills rather than a comic book version pieced together by wild tales and drifting imaginations. My favorite parts of the book deal with the intertwined perfection and imperfection of Bob and his life. Here's a guy who was born into poverty, ran away from home as a young teenager to escape poverty, almost became a preacher when he was found by a Godly family after running away, went back home to help out the family on the farm, almost got thrown into prison had it not been that for the local policeman recognizing who he was and letting him go after a failed robbery of a tire at a closed gas station, and then you've got repeated failures in almost every line of work you can imagine. And all along the way, through all of the misery and the rejection, he always had his fiddle (known as a "violin" for people north of the Mason-Dixon line) that bailed him out of trouble. Bob didn't WANT to use his fiddle for gain, but it always saved his rear when he was in a real pickle. He finally travels to the Dallas-Fort Worth area during the depression, which wasn't a good place to be, to tell you the truth. He gathered up a couple of guys to audition for a spot on the Light Crust Flour radio spot--Back in those days, companies hired musicians and various entertainers to perform on the radio and at live concerts. Usually, the name of the band was surprisingly enough the name of the product being pitched. In this case, whomever played for the Light Crust Flour company was named "The Light Crust Doughboys." Funny-sounding, yes, but back in the day it was a sure-fire way to make a connection with the blue-collar families that listened to the music on the radio while also being spoon-fed a healthy dose of advertising. To make alo

A scholar's excellent appreciation of Bob Wills . . .

Lovers of western swing owe a debt of gratitude to musicologist Charles Townsend, who spent many years collecting material for this wonderful biography of Bob Wills. In addition to many interviews with Bob and Betty Wills in the years (1971-73) before his death, Townsend talked at length to scores of people who worked with Wills and remembered him. The great achievement of the book is its warm appreciation of Wills and his Texas Playboys and its evocation of a swath of 20th century social history, while standing also as a sound work of research. Each chapter is followed by pages of footnotes that cite his sources; there are 200+ photographs of Bob and the many bands, right up to the final reunion; and the book ends with a 30+ page discography, with details of every recording session from 1929-1973. The 19-page index also makes it an excellent reference book. Townsend argues that Wills created a unique form of popular music by mixing instruments associated with both country music and jazz - strings on the one hand and drums, brass, and reeds on the other. He notes how Wills' distinctive style was a blend of frontier fiddle music, New Orleans Dixieland, and blues learned as a boy picking cotton with black field laborers. Not exactly country, and certainly not hillbilly - though he was often identified as such by recording marketers who seemed seldom to understand him - Wills often emulated the big swing bands of the 1930s and 40s. So his music acquired the label "western swing," and its popularity went from regional to national. Finally, with his best-loved hit "New San Antonio Rose" (1940) he entered the mainstream of American popular music. While following the rise of Wills' career as a bandleader, Townsend focuses also on his personal problems, his many marriages, his financial difficulties, his insecurities, and his alcoholism. Also, the post-war years were never to match the satisfaction Wills had in his first band. But even while popular music evolved and left swing behind, Wills maintained a huge audience of devoted fans, and younger bands today (Asleep at the Wheel, Hot Club of Cowtown) continue the legacy. This book is for everybody whose love affair with Bob Wills and his music lives on.

Ah HAAAAAAAAA

Best biography ever of the late great Bob Wills. Top-notch reading.Everything you ever wanted to know about the King of Western Swing, warts and all.

great

this is the only book to get some of the information of bob and the western swing movement. written by noted scholar and from a scholary/musico historian viewpoint. must read.

The Definative Biography of Bob Wills -

Based upon the oral history and interviews with band members, family and Bob Wills himself. Covers early life and hardships, personal and professional life. His succuss and hardships are explained in footnoted and annotated fashion.A very good insight to life in pre-war (pre-television) and post war America. After reading, I hear the old recordings differently based upon the interview comments. I never heard the suitcase beat on the "Steel Guitar Rag" until I read the musicians description Bob Wills life included the "first right to work" case argued before the US Supreme Court; he played at dances with Bonnie and Clyde in the audience; he owned a nightclub that was sold to Jack Ruby (assassin of Lee Harvey Oswald). Also tells the tale of how he wrote his most famous song "San Antonio Rose" by the men who were there when he did it!